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Fri, 24 May 2013 17:51:57 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1WHITE HOUSE PETITION: give student loans 0.75% like Wall St. crookshttp://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2013/05/24/white-house-petition-give-student-loans-0-75-like-wall-st-crooks/
http://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2013/05/24/white-house-petition-give-student-loans-0-75-like-wall-st-crooks/#commentsFri, 24 May 2013 17:51:57 +0000Professor Smartasshttp://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/?p=25Wall Street banks are getting those low rates to help them recover from the consequences of their own irresponsible and fraudulent behavior that crashed America’s and the world’s economy.

The only crime of most college students and graduates is wanting an education and a middle class standard of living.

Then send it to two friends, especially if they’re buried under student loans.

I don’t know if Obama and Congress will pass this bill, but if 100,000 people sign it, he has to AT LEAST respond to it and address two uncomfortable issues at once:

1. Why Wall Street is getting continuous superlow interest bailouts in the tens of trillions from the Federal Reserve after their criminal conduct.

2. Why the rest of us are told to tighten our belts and suck it up in spite of number 1.

]]>http://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2013/05/24/white-house-petition-give-student-loans-0-75-like-wall-st-crooks/feed/2WHITE HOUSE PETITION: Support Sen. Bernie Sanders bill to fix Social Security by removing the cap on income subject to the SS taxhttp://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2011/10/03/white-house-petition-support-sen-bernie-sanders-bill-to-fix-social-security-by-removing-the-cap-on-income-subject-to-the-ss-tax/
http://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2011/10/03/white-house-petition-support-sen-bernie-sanders-bill-to-fix-social-security-by-removing-the-cap-on-income-subject-to-the-ss-tax/#commentsMon, 03 Oct 2011 21:51:53 +0000Professor Smartasshttp://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/?p=21

"Social Security Pledge" by ProgressOhio on flickr

The White House has put up a petition site. We need to see how seriously they are going to take it by demanding that they protect Social Security and other past progressive achievements rather than dismantling them at the behest of Wall St. It takes 5,000 to get them to respond to it, and it’s a little over 1,100 away from that.

Will they actually support the bill? I don’t know, but if they won’t I want to hear why, which they will be obligated to do with a few more signatures.

Here’s the text of the petition:

Support Sen. Bernie Sanders bill to fix Social Security by removing the cap on income subject to the SS tax.

Unlike most government programs, Social Security has its own dedicated tax and is solvent until 2036.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, in S. 1558, has proposed gradually removing the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax, which would make it solvent for 75 years, and able to pay full benefits.

Removing the cap would also make this a flat rather than regressive tax.

Support this bill and refuse to support any “reform” such as privatizing, means testing, or raising the eligibility age that would weaken it for those who need it most in the working and middle class.

Sen. Sanders reform would strengthen the program whereas anything proposed by Wall St. would would take the “security.”

Washington has done enough for Wall St. It’s time to protect average Americans from them.

The Obama administration has set up a petition site for the general public. This is a good chance to see how seriously they are going to take the results, by asking him to give up a profoundly corrupt and destructive K-12 education policy and put the people who actually know what they are doing in charge.

Text of petition and link to sign:

The current education “reform” movement is driven by real estate, software, education management, and testing corporations who stand to profit from destroying existing public schools and replacing them with for profit charter schools that siphon for private profits that could have gone directly to classrooms.

Instead, listen to the teachers, involved parents, and scholars who do research on education to determine the best way to improve our schools while keeping them entirely public rather than treating our children’s future like a commodity to be speculated on like so many bushels of wheat or pork bellies.

What we can learn from the private sector is the best practices of entirely private schools, like your own children attend, and how to prepare our kids to benefit from them.

I don’t think we will get satisfactory answers to any questions we ask, but it’s like Lyndon Johnson said when an aide told him a rumor wasn’t true that he was trying to start about an opponent having sex with a horse.. ”I know, ” Johnson said, “but I want to hear him deny it.”

Politicians seem to be simply bought by a handful of corporations and wealthy individuals and work for them in office, and literally work for them as lobbyists, CEO’s, and board members when they leave office. Will you end this open corruption?

Worker productivity in the US has gone up significantly in the last few decades, and CEO pay and corporate profits have tracked pretty closely with that but worker wages have remained fairly flat. Is that fair to the workers who were so productive?

How do tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy create jobs when the problem is decreased demand for their products? Why would anyone hire people to make or sell more products than people want to buy?

How do you plan to eventually pay for gigantic war debt run up by President Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is your plan to cover it solely by cutting programs for the working and middle class?

What will Republicans do to rein in Wall Street’s scams and ponzi schemes and redirect their efforts to long term investing in real businesses instead of shorting and cannibalizing them?

Does the Republican Party have any strategy for bringing jobs back to the US BESIDES low taxes on the rich, cutting environmental and safety regulation, and demanding that Americans eventually work for Third World wages?

Do you think the contracts that gave bonuses to Wall Street executives even after they tanked our and the world economy are more sacred than the contracts of teachers, police, and firefighters that Republican governors are trying to break?

Given the coordinated nationwide assault on labor unions, and trade deals that have outsourced our manufacturing jobs, who does the Republican Party thinks deserves a middle class standard of living?

]]>http://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2011/02/25/ask-youtube-questions-for-boehner/feed/1Wisconsin Protesters: ask National Guard if they’ll beat you or join youhttp://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2011/02/19/wisconsin-protesters-call-out-the-national-guard-yourselves/
http://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/2011/02/19/wisconsin-protesters-call-out-the-national-guard-yourselves/#commentsSun, 20 Feb 2011 06:35:26 +0000Professor Smartasshttp://my.firedoglake.com/yurbud/?p=3The one card Governor Scott Walker has to play is calling out the national guard, but what if protesters beat him to the punch?

If you know someone in the guard ask them if they will obey the order to disperse or even fire on their friends and neighbors, and what kind state they think they’d end up living in if they did. Then post their replies to blogs or here, anonymously if they want or with their names if they are willing.

It would be a good question for capitol and state police as well.

Reporters should be asking guard commanders the same question. (I’m going to email or call later today).

Even if they say they. Will follow orders, it will plant a seed of doubt.

If someone says they won’t follow the orders, I would challenge them to join the protest in uniform–which would be a good idea for veterans among protesters right now. If the right doesn’t mind calling teachers and other public workers lazy pigs, it will a lot harder for them to do if it makes them look like they aren’t ”supporting the troops.”

Maybe if you know a someone in the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, especially public workers deployed in the guard, you could get video clips of statements of support.

We need to do more than beat the right here–we need to make them afraid to bash public workers and union bash ever again. We should make them BEG for the privilege to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. This needs to be their Waterloo, and we need the troops on our side to d